


These Words are What You Mean to Me

by NotWithoutTheseus



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Captain America: The First Avenger, Gen, World War II, but it's about their relationship, two-thirds of the characters aren't present
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:27:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotWithoutTheseus/pseuds/NotWithoutTheseus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Peggy Carter finds herself standing outside a lonely Brooklyn apartment, wondering what she's doing there. When she does go inside, she finds that those who lived there haven't really left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Words are What You Mean to Me

She climbed out of the cab, a little stiffly. There was a time and place to be languid, and a time and place to force nonchalance in front of men who she could have torn the throats out of, but here, on a nearly empty street in Brooklyn, she could afford to allow some of the grief and guilt of the past months show in her joints and limbs.  
  
Agent Peggy Carter looked up at the building in front of her which, stained and beat up as it looked, was obviously packed with residents. Noises filtered down to the street from every flat; it was dinnertime, and she smiled as laughter interspersed with exclamations came from the window closest to the ground. Her smile faded as she considered the window just beside it, the only dark window in the entire building. She was unsure if the other residents were even aware of who had been living beside them for years before their de- before they went to war. It was unlikely they would have thought of Steve. He had told her that everyone in the building was sympathetic to the wheezing and coughing that was audible through the walls while they lived there, and it would be hard to reconcile their sickly neighbour with the legend who was single-handedly winning the war, as the American papers would have it.  
  
“You can wait here,” Peggy said to the driver of the cab, “I shouldn’t be long. I just want to... I’ll be quick.” The driver was unperturbed, and settled back on the seat to wait as she closed the door behind her.  
  
She really wasn’t sure why she was here. It was the first time she had had a semblance of a break since the plane had gone down in the Arctic; this was partially her own doing, as all the tasks and orders she barked out and gave herself seemed to keep her grounded when nothing else would. It wasn’t until a week ago, when she was sitting at her desk, figuring out the next step, that she found herself calling to her assistant to bring her Steve Rogers’ file. It was sparse- intentionally so, most of the details of Steve’s involvement with the super-soldier program were kept with the project, close to Howard Stark. She’d been avoiding that man; intelligent and high-minded as he was, he had taken to his lab and surrounded himself with people who cooed over his inventions and dreams, and the suffocating atmosphere was too much for her. As a result, she hadn’t seen him in well over two months, and had slowly been moved farther and farther from the centre of operations.  
  
As a result of the bare bones nature of Steve’s file, the few facts that did exist stood out- and Peggy, who had missed the memorial service held for Steve- not Captain America- by Sergeant Barnes’ parents, saw the address listed under his name and cleared her schedule.  
  
So here she was now, standing in front of the door to an empty flat, without the key (non -issue) and without a clue of what she intended (which was only slightly an issue). The door beside her opened, and a man with a dog stepped out, pulling the door behind him. He raised his eyebrow when he saw her standing there.  
  
“You are looking for someone?” He put his foot out to stop the dog from running forward, but Peggy made an abortive gesture indicating she was fine. The dog came forward and sniffed her, but as soon as she attempted to pet it, it lost interest and turned away. “The boys in that place don’t live there any more.”  
  
“No, I just came to visit the flat itself,” Peggy said. “I was a friend of Steve’s.”  
  
“Was?” The man looked saddened, but not surprised. “So he went to the war too, huh? Well, that’s what happens when you let a little guy in. They should have turned him away.”  
  
“Maybe,” she allowed. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered it as well- if Steve had never found Dr. Erskine, if he had never been chosen for the project, would it have been better? For someone else to be Captain America?  
  
“Hey, we actually missed Bucky’s folks before, when they came- we have some of the mail that came while the boys were gone. You want to take it from us?” Before she could answer, he was turning back to the flat and calling out in quick Spanish. Within moments, he received a bundle from an unseen hand. “Here, for you.”  
  
It was a thick stack of envelopes, at least twenty, and Peggy thanked the man for holding on to them. He waved it off. “They were good neighbours, nice people. With every boy dying like flies around us, you kinda get used to it; but we did feel bad to hear about Bucky dying. And now Steve too. Gotta hope this war’ll be over. I got kids, and only one old enough to be thinking about it, and god, does he think. Talking about being Captain America, taking over. I tell him, they don’t want a Spanish kid as Captain America, you stay home. Whatever works, huh?” He laughed, shook his head, and left with the dog.  
  
Peggy watched him go, before turning back to the door, and picking the lock with haste. She needed desperately to get inside the flat, needed to take a breath, needed to make sure she didn’t imagine an entire world where Captain America had promised her a dance, where Steve Rogers had sat beside her and told her no one had ever wanted to dance with him. Talking to this man now, that world seemed so far away- the war wasn’t something that she heard in a death toll number, like these people, it was something she saw when decimated troops came filing back into camp, it was something she felt when making a decision that could save a man’s life and kill twenty others. Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes had lived here, and she wasn’t part of it.  
  
The lock clicked, and she quickly stepped inside the flat, careful not to slam the door behind her. She was surprised to see it was for the most part still furnished- a table and chairs in the kitchen, a sofa by an empty bookshelf. The lack of any personal effects was telling, however- the people who had cleaned it out had obviously taken the objects of most sentimental value and left the furniture to be dealt with later. She dropped into a chair and put the stack of envelopes on the table. Sounds were coming through the walls, from the family next door; other than that, everything was still. Peggy eyed the envelopes, then pulled them towards her, half-curious, half needing something to do instead of just sit and think. Each one was addressed to Steve, and with the same handwriting. No return address. His parents were dead, and it was unlikely that Sergeant Barnes’ parents would open the envelopes- for a moment, she felt almost entitled to open them, and had opened the first before she even considered that perhaps they should just be thrown out, now that they would never reach their intended recipient. _Well, no use now_ , she thought, grimacing inwardly at her lame reasoning, as she began to read the letter.  
  
 _Dear Steve,_  
  
 _Look, I’m sorry I missed you when I left. I would have waited if I could, but we were shipping out, and they got to keep to a schedule. I felt real bad, but I guess it’s my own fault, I thought I could have my cake and eat it too with both you and the dames, huh? Please don’t hold it against me, I’m gonna write you as much as I can, I’ll write you goddamn novels, just to keep you busy. Haha, you’re not gonna miss me though, I’m not worried about you at all. That’d be the reason I took all the stupid with me! It’s my first night in camp, and I’m not really missing anything back home yet, but I sure wish you could see what it’s like here, all of us boys crammed in one tent. I was gonna say you’d hate it, but you’d probably pick a fight with all of them and laugh your way through it. They’re good guys though, you’d like them. When we’re all back home, I’ll introduce you._  
  
 _I’m gonna keep writing, Steve. If you’re mad at me, I get it. But as soon as you’re not, write me back!_  
  
 _Bucky_  
  
Peggy was frowning at the paper. It was dated days after Steve had been drafted into the army; she was vaguely aware that Steve had told no one that he had been signing up, and his desperation to get to Bucky after the capture had yielded very few details of their actual lives, only that Bucky meant more to Steve than he could possible express. She had imagined that Sergeant Barnes would have known that Steve had joined the army, but she was only realising now that there was no way that was actually possible. She opened the next letter.  
  
 _Dear Stevie,_  
  
 _It’s raining all the time right now, but I think the sun’s going to come out soon. Had a rough time in practice yesterday- I only made six shots, and that may seem like a lot, but normally I make ten. I still outstripped the other fellas though, and I’ve pretty much got the whole sniper thing in the bag. Remember when we were shooting the cans off the roof when we were 13, and we didn’t know that your mom was standing below, and she got hit by every one? I guess that hiding we got for that was worth it then, if I can shoot this good now!_  
  
Peggy smiled. Too much about what she knew of Steve seemed sombre, tempered by the stress of the project and the war itself, but every time he was with the Commandos, was with Bucky, he laughed as if he didn’t have the weight of a country hanging off his name, and he talked to her like they were both normal people who didn’t have to protect secrets from the entire world. Even Bucky, who had always seemed a little distant and dark while she knew him, acted like Steve Rogers hung the moon and it was obvious from the letters that he’d always felt that way. One by one, she opened each letter.  
  
 _Dear Stevie..._  
  
 _Hey punk..._  
  
 _I missed you today when..._  
  
 _Nearly got shot today, something to laugh about, I guess..._  
  
 _Remember when you told me that..._  
  
 _You know where to send your letters to, right? Here’s the address again..._  
  
 _I think I killed someone today._  
  
 _I told about those guys from my unit right? Funny thing happened today..._  
  
 _I know you’re still sore about it, but it’s a good thing you’re not here..._  
  
Peggy grimaced, reading that last line. Bucky Barnes had had a protective streak that ran a mile wide; she could only imagine what he’d thought of her and Dr. Erskine, the people who had let his sick friend join a fight he couldn’t hope to win.  
  
A funny feeling was twisting her stomach while she sat in that kitchen in the empty flat (it was getting dark outside, and she could only imagine what she now owed the cabbie). Though it was in no way her fault (it couldn’t be) she couldn’t help but feel responsible for not getting these letters to Steve while he was still at the camp, while he was touring as Captain America. Even as the tone of the letters grew bleaker as she read each one, taking on a world-weary air she knew too well in tired soldiers, she had a feeling that Steve would have leapt upon them and ordered himself to shipped out to join the 107th. She’d had a sense that Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes meant the world and beyond to each other, and watching Steve after Bucky’s death had been heartbreaking.  She would have given anything, and indeed tried to give everything, to ensure he could be happy still, but it was Steve Rogers flying that plane and it was obvious he had no intention of getting out of that alive. In a million ways she had run it over in her head, there were at least a few options that would have gotten Steve out alive, but she had a feeling it wouldn’t have mattered anyway- not with Bucky’s ghost sitting beside him. Feeling slightly lightheaded from the morbid train of thought, she clumsily ripped open the last letter.

 _Dear Steve,_  
  
 _We’re going on mission tomorrow. It’s going to be rough, and it’s really a bad atmosphere here in camp right now. Everyone’s writing their letters, it’s not just me. A few of the guys asked me if I could help them write theirs, and if what they’re going to say to their folks is anything like what I want to say to you, and to my folks, I’m just feeling bad that they have to tell me first. It’s hard to imagine that anyone else would be allowed to hear this._  
  
Peggy choked a little on her guilt.  
  
 _Aw hell, I’ve pretty much told you every which way from Sunday that you’re the best damn kid I ever knew. Don’t get mad at me, but I still think that you coming here would have been the worst idea anybody ever had. But it’s true.You’re not gonna be the kind of soldier like I am, where we go into the fight and we don’t come back and it’s all a great big show of how much everyone’s giving it their all. You’re gonna be the kind of guy who’s going to get past each and every single person who thought you couldn’t do it, and you’re going to singlehandedly end this war, I swear to god. Hey, keep this letter, for after you’ve done it, prove to everyone I can predict the future. And I really want to say, that even though I do think all that, that you shouldn’t be here and that you can go kill Hitler himself, there’s no one I’d rather have by my side, when I do fall, you know? It would have been great to fight with you one more time, I guess._  
  
 _You’re the best thing to ever happen to the world, and by far the best thing that ever happened to me. Knowing that I got to have Steve Rogers as my friend, that’s always been the kind of thing I never really understood how I got it so good, but god, did I love that you never questioned it, questioned me._  
  
 _You know, even if I don’t die after this, and you get a letter saying, “surprise, I’m alive” after, I still stand by it all. I am gonna die eventually- though let’s hope it’ll be like 200 years later- and I think you’re always gonna deserve to hear it._  
  
 _So, think of me, okay? And with any luck, I’ll see you on the other side._  
  
 _Love Bucky_  
  
Peggy had a lot of experience in being alone. As of this moment, if she was asked to identify the person she would send a letter like this to, she would most likely say her sister, but Peggy hadn’t even seen her in years. As of a few months ago, she might have said Steve, and had he lived, she liked to think she definitely would have sent Steve a letter like this. But as it was, sitting in the flat where two boys had given everything to each other, only for both to die days apart, it was hard to imagine that she could ever begin to feel for another person what Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes had felt for each other.  
  
Bucky Barnes had gone in to Hydra’s PoW camp assuming that his friend was choosing never to speak to him again- she could only imagine what he’d thought when Steve Rogers showed up.  And Steve had watched Bucky die, without ever knowing what Bucky had wanted to tell him, without knowing that these letters stood, piling up in their neighbour’s home, as a testament to a friendship that refused to give up, even when both of the men no longer drew breath.  
  
She folded the letters up gently, and tucked each one back into their respective envelopes. She thought about making it look as if they hadn’t been opened, then decided she didn’t quite mind, and she knew that Bucky’s parents- assuming it was them who came by first- wouldn’t ever know to contact her to complain. Piling them up neatly on the table, she left the apartment, climbed into the cab, and went back to war.

**Author's Note:**

> My first fanfic, ever! I've been reading a lot of Captain America, post-Winter Soldier fics, and this kind of "strolled into my head, fully formed".
> 
> I'm a little rough on Howard Stark here- it's mainly because his role in the Agent Carter one-shot bothered me. Why does he get to ignore her for months on end, only to swoop in and say "you're obviously the best gal in town!" It seemed a little weird, so I imagined a situation where they distanced themselves from each other, and he's actually a bit of a twat. But I guess he's grieving too, so whatever works.
> 
> I had a little bit of fun with the last letter, playing with foreshadowing. Does it could as foreshadowing when it's already happened?


End file.
